Getting There
When Jay posted an announcement and description of a
plan to hike Gunung Raung in Bondowoso, he was met with enthusiasm and interest
from at least 20 PCVs. This being
Indonesia, stuff—scheduling difficulties, weather, etc.—got in the way. By the time a date was fixed, only four
volunteers remained: Jay, John Alford, Nicole, and me.
At the top of Raung is Indonesia's largest volcanic crater. By all accounts, it's a site to behold. Raung isn’t Everest, but it’s not a walk in Central Park
either. It takes nine hours to make it
to the summit, which eclipses 3,300 meters, or close to 11,000 feet. There’s no water on the mountain, and the
descent takes at least another six hours.
It was decided that the hike would take place during national exams
(when we don’t have to teach). We would
start Tuesday evening, climb throughout the night, and spend a few hours at the
top to watch the sunrise. Then we would
descend, finishing on Wednesday afternoon, go to Nicole’s house, enjoy an
evening of recovery, and go home on Thursday morning. I’d arrive sometime in the evening, sleep,
and make it to school the next morning to give my students a test.
I woke up at four in the morning on Tuesday. It takes about 10 hours to reach
Bondowoso—the nearest important city to the mountain—by bus. From there it would be another two hours to
get to the mountain itself. Generally
speaking, the magic number for public transport here is four. You can go from pretty much anywhere to pretty
much anywhere else in four rides.
After waiting for 25 minutes in the pre-dawn for a bus, I
stepped on the first one that appeared.
That bus (#1) was actually the wrong one, only going about half way to
Jombang, my immediate destination. It
dropped me there, where I switched to an angkot (#2) headed for Jombang. Apparently the driver of that angkot didn’t
see any profit in taking the passengers all the way to the market, so he dropped
us off in front of a different angkot and gave a slice of our fares to its
driver. We got in that angkot (#3),
which took us to the market in short order. I waited there for about ten minutes for a bus
heading to Mojokerto, where I planned to meet John Alford. The bus (#4) I got on was packed. I stood for the entire 45-minute ride between
Jombang and Mojokerto, and since there was no handrail, I sort of pressed my
hands against an overhead luggage compartment for balance. The position wasn’t much different than the
one you assume at an airport security check with a full body scanner. For most of an hour.
I got off at the terminal in Mojokerto and met John. He and I quickly learned that our planned
route of Mojokerto to Probolinggo doesn’t exist. We would have to go through Surabaya
first. So we hopped onto the first bus
(#5) headed that way. This, too, was
packed. I counted approximately 50 seats
on the bus, but there were certainly over 100 passengers at some points. It’s fortunate that most people here don’t
know English, or the conductor may have understood me as I cursed him aloud for
his greed and villainy each time he let more people on.
In Surabaya, we were determined to take a Patas bus. Most buses we ride are comparable to steerage
class on ocean liners. Patas is a step
up: it’s air conditioned, makes only planned stops, and the vehicles have shock
absorbers. So we found a Patas bus
heading to Probolinggo (#6) and passed a smooth couple of hours in relative
luxury. I even managed to get 45 minutes
of dearly needed sleep. At Probolinggo
it became clear that the gods demanded suffering as payment for our previous
comfort, so we had to get on one of the worst buses (#7) in Indonesia. Smoke-filled, roasting, and filled with an
annoying assortment of passengers. To
our right was a man texting on a cell phone with quite literally the loudest
alert tone I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear. To the fore, a procession of buskers,
including not one, but two separate karaoke singers, one of whom actually
set up shop right next to our seats. And
surrounding us, a swarm of smokers bent on hotboxing the bus.
After several hours in that dump-with-wheels, we had to get
off in a little town called Besuki to get on the bus that would finally bring
us to Bondowoso city. We waited for a
quarter hour, and just as I had started heading to a nearby convenience store
to look for an ATM, the big red bus (#8) pulled in. Mercifully, this one was rather empty, so we
were comfortable the whole ride. Alas, neither
would this go unpunished. Shortly after
arriving in Bondowoso, I realized that I no longer had my wallet. I searched myself and my backpack several
times, then tried to find the bus, which had already departed. I talked to some staff at the terminal, but
it was clear there was very little chance of getting the wallet back. I was 100% sure I’d lost it on that last bus,
because I’d taken it out to purchase a strawless bag of soymilk. I didn’t have much money in it—only 4,000
rupiah, or less than 50 cents. But it
did have several important ID cards, as well as my ATM card. Not to mention, I’d had that wallet since I
was a freshman in college, and it had sentimental value.
By this point, the four of us were gathered at the Bondowoso
terminal, and we took a microlet (#9), which is a large angkot/small bus, in
the direction we needed to go. When we
wanted to change to another angkot, we discovered that the one we’d counted on
had stopped running earlier in the day.
We called the “base camp”—the place where hikers of Mt. Raung start out
and pay and maybe hire a guide—to arrange for them to pick us up in a private
car. Before they sent anyone, however,
we were offered a ride by a random man in an SUV (#10). That’s Indonesia for you. The random guy turned out to be a principal
at a nearby school who spoke excellent English, and he’d even heard about
Nicole from the principal of her school.
A pleasant ride ensued, and we made it to the base camp by 5:15pm.
We spent about 45 minutes preparing to go. We unloaded the dispensables, purchased a lot of water (four to five liters per
person), and decided not to hire a guide.
As the sky darkened, we climbed into the final truck (#11) that would
take us to the start of the trail. Night
had fallen, and we were heading up a mountain.
The four of us were giddy with excitement. Between jokes and jabber we peered at the
stars, which were growing ever clearer. Fireflies blinked in the tree-tops. A bumpy half-hour trip brought us to the start
of the trail. We hopped out of the
truck.
**
Reality Check
If you’ve read carefully, you may be asking yourself whether
I actually planned so imprudently. That
is, whether I planned (after a four-hour night’s sleep) to spend 14 hours
getting to a mountain that would take nine hours to climb, with no breaks. Yeah, I guess I did. After all, my early twenties are running out.
**
Ascent
As happens in any long trip, we began in high spirits. Each of us carried nightpiercing LEDs to
light the way. We talked and joked, and
we stopped frequently to stare at the stars.
The first time we all looked up together, a meteor tore through the sky.
Auspicious! I was wearing an
undershirt, a tough collared athletic short-sleeve, cargo shorts, and my white
Converse basketball shoes.
The first part of the trail was a gentle gradient, winding
through farmland. Not too long after, we
entered the forest—perhaps you’d call it jungle? The trail was quite clear, and we were
thankful we didn’t pay the 300,000 rupiah ($33) for a guide. We zigged through the forest and zagged
through a stretch of sawgrass and zigged back into the woods. For a long stretch, the trail got muddier and
slipperier, and the plants were covered in dew, which soaked the fronts of our
pants. Little missteps here and there,
and soon mud flecked our clothing and skin.
Most vegetation in the forest is benign, but there are a few
hazards: occasional thorny vines, concealed roots that can snatch your foot,
and small, sharp, broken branches that might poke you in the head or eye if
you’re not vigilant. Wearing shorts, as
I was, keeps you from overheating but exposes your shins and ankles to the
endless abrasion of the plants that flank and pinch the trail. It’s dark, but you can feel your legs turning
pink from the buildup of tiny scrapes.
Some three hours in, we weren’t quite as rosy-cheeked as
we’d been upon setting off. We took
turns losing our footing and grasping violently for deep-rooted plants to
prevent an embarrassing and painful tumble.
It must have been in some such tumble that I picked up a
hitchhiker. We stopped to take a short
break, and I shone the light on my leg to see just how muddy things had gotten. To my curiosity and surprise, there was an
animal on my left leg that I’d never actually seen before. It only took me about two seconds looking at
it to realize it was a leech. I couldn’t
feel it on there, but it was black and squishy and attached to me, slightly to
the right of the shin. My friends and I
stood around for half a minute, not sure what exactly to do.
You should probably
get that off.
How
do I do that?
I think you have to
burn them off.
Yeah, I heard you have
to burn them off.
Do you have any fire?
I didn’t bring a
lighter.
Oh, screw it.
So I ripped the little bloodsucker off my leg and watched
with fascination as a small amount of blood drip from the wound. Ten minutes later, it was still
dripping—quite slowly—and I wondered aloud whether leech saliva contains an
anticoagulant.
I think it does!
It must, right?
I wiped the blood off with a leaf and got a band-aid from
Nicole. Apart from the novelty and
initial grossness, it wasn’t a big deal.
We pressed on. I pulled two more
leeches off my hands within the next half hour, but they were tiny. None of my friends found any on their skin—I was
the only victim. It seems my blood is
uninteresting to mosquitos, but succulent to leeches.
The hours dragged on, we climbed and climbed. We passed a tent with some campers. The trail was never objectively brutal for
too long, but the general difficulty rose with each hour of toil. Though we were well-stocked with water, food
was in short supply. Between the four of
us, we had a box of crackers (maybe 50) and two fun-sized bags of Pop-Mie,
which is akin to ramen noodles. Having
no equipment to cook, we would just eat them dry. A quarter of a bag of noodles and about 12
crackers per person for a sixteen-hour hike.
As we battled up the mountain, we moved into new layers of
silence. There were layers sprinkled
with chirping creatures, and others with a purring windy overtone, and still
others that were absolute, seemingly infinite.
When we stopped to rest, the sense of physical relief blended into the
hypnotic serenity—standing up again was difficult. It’s interesting how, in total silence, your
identity fades a bit. If nothing speaks
or sounds, everything seems connected.
Past midnight, we were still making our way up the
mountain. By this point I had learned
something about myself. My body is limited. A truism, yes, but something that makes an
impression when you really feel it. After
an hour of hiking, my groin started getting rather painful. It worsened steadily, until by around five or
six hours, it was hard to lift my right leg more than a foot in the air. Every other step was sharp and painful, and I
dreaded having to climb over logs. I
reached for every tree trunk I could see to pull myself and reduce the strain
on my right leg. Why was the impression
of limitedness so strong? Because this
was not due to injury. This is an
anatomical design flaw, and it’s mine for life.
If I challenge myself physically, I must expect this problem to recur.
By one or two in the morning, Nicole and I were plodding
along, emitting the occasional groans and exchanging occasional weary words,
rather far behind Jay and John, who were fresher and swifter. At one point we stopped to rest and lay down
on the ground, and I nearly fell asleep.
When John and Jay stopped to wait for us, I would inquire about our
elevation.
What are we at?
2,600 meters. I think the trail goes up to about 2,900.
300 to go, then.
Okay, let’s push
on. We can do this.
Each time I started walking after rest, I could feel my
heart begin pounding furiously. I
wondered, Is the air so thin here, or am
I just weak, or do I need to eat? Somewhere in those last 200 meters, I was
actually afraid that my legs might give out.
I remember being in high school trying out the bench press, and the
feeling of starting a rep that I was unsure I could complete—sometimes the bar
made it up, sometimes not. I was afraid
at a couple points that my leg just might not have what it takes to lift my
body anymore.
Finally, Nicole and I caught up to John and Jay where they’d
been waiting for us on a flat bit of terrain. We were still a hundred meters below the
summit, but when I sat down to rest my back and legs, I knew that there would
be no more hiking that night. It was
3:30 in the morning. Without even
searching for the least uncomfortable patch of ground, or one sheltered from
the wind, we lay down in a huddle— some call it the cuddle puddle.
**
Night, Morning, &
Descent
At over 2,800 meters, the air was cold. Our shoes and socks were soaked through
because of all the mud and dew. All of
us had intolerably icy feet. I hadn’t
brought long pants, but I did have a sarong with me. We put on all the clothes we’d brought—for
me, an undershirt, t-shirt, waterproof jacket, shorts, and sarong—and tried to
sleep for a time. Unbeknownst to us at
the time, we’d lain down in a particularly windy spot, which made sleep all the
more elusive. We were on our backs,
heads toward the mountain, feet pointing to the enormous misty valley below,
where little lights glimmered.
Strangely, the stars seemed dimmer than they had lower on the mountain. We thought it might be a thin layer of clouds
or light pollution.
I was trembling with cold and frequently shifted to
positions that seemed warmer. On my
right, Jay started shivering. When I put
my hand on his leg to knead some warmth into him, he sprang up in a panic. He’d been asleep and thought an animal was
climbing on him. We all giggled and
chuckled—Jay too—warmly as the confusion in his expression was replaced with understanding
and laughter.
After an hour or so trying to sleep, the sky began to
lighten. I awaited the morning with
great anticipation. My feet were frozen
and my whole body chilled, and the sun was a promise of warmth and
comfort. As it rose and bathed us in
daylight, we set out our shoes and socks to dry. I discovered a posture of sitting on top of
my feet that would return feeling to them and keep them warm—as long as I
didn’t move. Jay opened up the Pop-Mie
and the four of us devoured the two small bags.
After you’ve climbed a mountain, even the cheapest food tastes like
ambrosia.
I sat in the sun and couldn’t resist lying down again. I fell asleep on the cold ground with the
light shining on my face. The others
succumbed to the spell of sunshine and drifted off as well, and there we lay
for an hour or more. After waking, I sat
while the other boys paced, waiting for their shoes and socks to dry. Jay and John were eager to complete the last
100 meters to top. I’d had enough and
declined to join them. I was thinking
about my groin, my fatigue, and the upcoming six hour descent. A two-hour round trip to start the day didn’t
appeal to me. Nicole also chose to stay
behind.
I slept again, as did Nicole, and after waking up we basked
in the growing warmth of the morning. I
took off my jacket and sarong and put on sunscreen. My feet were now toasty and cheerful. The two of us passed an hour in conversation. We didn’t have any materials for making fire,
but in the spirit of enterprise, we tried to use my glasses and a bottle of
water to concentrate the sunlight and ignite some kindling that we
gathered. It didn’t work, but that was
beside the point. The morning was
overpowering in its pleasantness.
Eventually Jay and John returned, looking both tired and
invigorated. They reported that the
crater atop the mountain was an incredible sight, and they’d taken lots of
pictures. For another hour we lounged at
our ‘campsite’, and then we decided to begin the descent. My backpack was significantly lighter. High school science tells me that one liter
of water weighs one kilogram. I was
starting the descent four kilos lighter than I’d started the climb.
Clouds had blown in over the course of the morning, so the
sun’s intensity, which turns savage in the middle of the day—even more so in
the jungle—was restrained. Another boon:
walking downhill doesn’t use the same muscles as walking uphill. All the strain goes to the calves and knees (more or less fresh at this point), so my ailing groin was largely
spared. I picked up a large walking
stick. Seeing the whole trail and forest
in the light was a whole different experience than plunging through at
night. John and Jay spotted a monkey in
the trees. Conscious that this trip
would take a long time, I made an effort to keep up conversation as much as
possible, both for morale and to pass time more quickly (and simply to exchange
with friends). Anytime it was silent for
too long, I shot a question to my nearest companion.
Working with less sleep and two extra hours of hiking in the
early morning, Jay and John were more tired and more impatient on the way
down. I could see they wanted to be
finished already, even more than myself.
They got ahead of me and Nicole, occasionally stopping to let us catch
up and take a group breather. The time
passed quickly, but as we neared the last third of the descent, everything
seemed to slow down. Soon I was
expecting to come upon the end of the trail at every turn.
Did we really go all
this way last night?
We must have. The end’s gotta be right up here somewhere.
Nicole and I talked about many things—various aspects of
service, challenges, plans for the future, our own takes on personal
development, and even a touch of philosophy.
Surely we were approaching the end of the trail. We started feeling uncertain. Just how far down was the starting spot, and
how probable was it that we had taken or would take a wrong fork in the
trail? Jay and John were out of sight,
far ahead of us, so we couldn’t consult with them. Six hours into the hike, we were almost
positive we should already have arrived. We marched on, our misgivings mounting. Climbing at night had left us largely unable
to recognize our surroundings, so it was unclear whether we’d trodden this ground
the day before. At some point, I felt
certain that we’d gone too far. We
called out to John and Jay, but there was no answer.
It was already four in the afternoon. I had thought we’d be finished by three. The clouds which had been shielding us from
the sun’s severity were turning dark and drizzling. It gets dark by six on Java, and the thought
of being lost in the dark without food was depressing. Eventually we decided to turn back and see if
we’d taken a wrong fork. Nicole tried
continuously to send text messages to the other boys, but signal was never
present long enough to make a phone call.
We walked back up the trail, then stopped. After some discussion, we decided to continue
backtracking and look for signal. My
anxiety was deepening. I trudged half-angrily
back towards the mountain, trying not to think about what we’d do after
dark. And then Jay called out to
us. He was running up the trail behind
us.
It turns out we hadn’t gone far enough. At our point of farthest progress, where I
stood on a fallen tree and called out to Jay and John, we were only about five
minutes away from the end. Jay
apologized for getting so far ahead of us and assured us that he and John had
also been confused and on the verge of turning around when they came upon the
end of the trail. I felt embarrassed,
because I’d been sure we had to turn back.
We finished the last 20 minutes of the walk in silence. John was waiting by the truck that would
bring us back to the base camp. He
seemed particularly tired. After all, he
had been keeping the fastest pace and rested the least out of everyone. The driver quickly set up a tarp and blanket
in the truckbed, and we climbed in and crumpled to the floor.
**
Recovery
Shortly after we started bouncing along the road to the base
camp, it started to rain. Then to
pour. We were all so exhausted by this
point that we didn’t even utter complaints. Instead, Jay and I started a
delirious conversation.
If you just think,
like, I want it to rain right now, then it’s great that it’s raining. You know, we should just say: It’s raining!
This is awesome!
Yeah,
that’s true. It just depends on what you
want. Sometimes I think that about
pain. Maybe if I can convince myself
that I enjoy my leg hurting, it won’t bother me that it hurts.
That reminds me of an
article I read about football wide receivers who run routes over the
middle. Routes over the middle are where
you are almost certain to get the crap knocked out of you. The person they were interviewing explained
that if you were assigned to a route like that, you have to just psyche
yourself up for it and say: All right, baby, time to get hit! Yes! Let’s do
this!
And so on. The rain
soaked into my pants, and I was cold again.
Once we made it to the paved part of the road, the driver turned off the
engine and cruised in neutral most of the rest of the way to the base
camp. Cold and wet in the back, we were
fantasizing about hot drinks and warm, sumptuous repasts. By the time we arrived, the rain had
stopped. We stumbled out of the truck,
ready for baths. There were two
bathrooms, so John and Jay both went in to wash and change. As they did, the rain suddenly came flooding
down. It was hard to hear others talking
over the crashing of the water on corrugated roofs.
I was grateful for the bath, though the water was icy. It felt good to be clean, and thus it was
miserable when I had to put my soiled shirt back on. I had forgotten to pack a second shirt
(though I did bring three pairs of socks—all necessary). After baths, we ate soto ayam that the hostess had prepared for us. We hired an angkot to take us to Nicole’s
house, where we planned to stay the night.
During the ride from the mountain to the basecamp, as it was raining on
us, we had hatched a plan to make pancakes and cookies at Nicole’s. We were desperate for something warm and
gooey and sweet. So we figured out how
we might do this, and the cookies were replaced with brownies.
The angkot ride was furious.
As we had the van to ourselves, we all tried to rest. I lay down on the bench with my head in
Nicole’s lap and fell asleep. I awoke
when we had reached her site. We carried
our shoes—nobody wanted to put them on again—and bags across the street and
entered Nicole’s house. Her family was
smiling and welcoming. The house was
warm and clean. We were ready to drop,
but the lure of brownies and pancakes was too strong. Nicole lives next door to a grocery store,
where we were able to buy baking powder and flour. Predictably, the locals stared at the four of
us and giggled when they thought we couldn’t see.
Nicole kindly lent me a shirt that wasn’t suffused with two
days of sweat. And so we baked brownies
from a mix that Nicole had received from the US, and Jay made pancakes. The only mishap was when Jay poured several
tablespoons of rock salt into the flour, mistaking it for crystal sugar. With the help of a sieve, we straightened it
out. An hour after arriving at Nicole’s,
we were feasting on chocolate chip pancakes and brownies. After having our fill, we went to sleep. The three boys slept in Nicole’s bed, and she
took a guest bed in a different room.
The whole trip to that point made me think about the nature
of deprivation and pleasure. After
walking uphill for several hours, there is an indescribable pleasure in taking
a few steps on level ground. When you’ve
spent a night tossing and turning in the cold, there is really nothing more
gratifying than warm sunlight on your skin.
When your body aches from constant exertion and inadequate rest, the
idea of curling up with three people in a single bed seems like a luxury. When you’ve spent hours standing up, crushed
by the crowd of passengers, on a bus without air conditioning, having your own
seat and a personal flow of air are nothing short of royal opulence. When you spend a year in a country of never-ending
clamor and commotion, the silence of a mountaintop is holy.
Really, my entire time in Indonesia has served to reinforce
the lesson: We derive joy from experiences in proportion to the deprivation
that precedes them. Is there any sense,
then, in overindulging in anything?
Perhaps one ought to seek deprivation in order to transform the ordinary
into the exceptional.
**
Return
I had planned to wake and start the home journey at six in
the morning on Thursday. Naturally,
then, I got up at eight. Everyone else
was up before me—classic, if you know anything about me. We ate breakfast and discussed how we would
return. Having used eleven in the fiasco
on Tuesday, I was determined to get home with as few vehicles as possible. I also started thinking about my lost wallet
and how I’d have to get all those new cards.
We tallied up my debt—I owed Jay and John money for covering various
expenses, and I would owe John more by the end of the day, as he was funding my
trip home.
We all said good-bye.
John and I boarded a bus to Bondowoso.
There we waited for a bus heading to Surabaya. John’s route would diverge from mine at
Pasuruan. In the meantime I spoke with
one of the security officers at the terminal.
He asked me where I was from, and I answered Kediri. “Ah. Kok kelihatanya
seperti orang berkulit putih?” Oh. Why do
you look like a white person?
Amused, I explained the situation.
I was proud that he was willing to believe I was Indonesian—no accent to
betray me. Eventually the bus was ready
to depart and John and I got on. The
trip to Surabaya would take seven hours and require us to change buses (but not
re-purchase tickets) in Probolinggo, which was a godsend. The first bus was hot and awful. The second bus was air-conditioned and with
well-cushioned seats. At Pasuruan, John
got off the bus and I was finally on my own again.
He had given me 50,000 rupiah in Bondowoso. I had 22,000 left after buying the ticket to
Surabaya. I calculated that from
Surabaya, 15,000 would be enough to get me home. As we approached Surabaya, I started worrying
about the time. My route was
Surabaya-Jombang-Home, but I had to be in Jombang before 7:30, when the last
bus leaves. Having left Nicole’s house
three hours later than I originally intended, I was mildly concerned.
And then I got stuck.
Over the course of an hour, somewhere close to Surabaya, the
bus didn’t move more than 200 meters.
Traffic in Indonesian urban areas is horrendous—Jakarta reputedly has
the world’s worst traffic. I sat in the
bus, growing more and more nervous.
3:00pm…4:00pm…4:30pm. We just sat
there. Men got out of the bus to smoke
cigarettes and urinate next to the highway.
I started sending out distressed SMS’s and cursing the gods. The bus driver had put in a VCD of corny
karaoke, and when it had finished after an hour, he put it in again. Thumbscrews were boring into my head above
the ears.
I didn’t have an others means to get home, and if stranded, I wouldn’t be able to pay for accommodations or hire special transport. I only had enough to get home by the cheapest means, and I had no money and no access to money. It felt cruel and unfair. By the time we started moving again, I was sure of failure. I arrived in the Surabaya terminal at 5:15pm, ignored the horde of men trying to direct me to Bali, and ran onto a bus headed for Jombang. Surabaya to Jombang can’t really be done in under two and a half hours, and I had barely two hours to make it. Plus, we were going to have to get out of Surabaya, whose traffic got me into this trouble. Soon after the bus pulled out of the station at about 5:30, it became clear that the driver meant business. He and I were both in a hurry.
I could continue in detail about the plots to get home that
I was cooking up as the bus raced along the highway, but I will spare you. I was resigned to my fate, but unsure how I
would deal with it. I was terribly
hungry, not having eaten anything since a light breakfast in the morning at
Nicole’s. I was afraid to spend any
money the whole day—I might not have enough to make it back to site. As I stared out of the window, miserable and
stony-faced, the man next to me offered me some fried tofu, which I
instinctively declined with a wave of my hand.
I regretted it immediately, but didn’t have the pluck to ask for it
after turning it down. Suddenly, much
sooner than I expected, the conductor announced that we’d be going through
Mojokerto. My heart leapt. We were making unbelievable time. Jombang was only about 45 minutes from
Mojokerto, and it was still 6:40. We
were on pace to make it.
From that point it was simply a matter of rooting for the
driver. My heart cheered at every
dangerous pass and irresponsible game of chicken. I cursed every passenger that got on the bus
and caused it to stop momentarily. As we
crossed the border from Mojokerto into Jombang, I readied myself. I moved to the front of the bus as we neared
the terminal. The bus doesn’t enter the
terminal after five: it just unloads passengers at an intersection nearby. I jumped out before the bus even
stopped.
As usual, I was immediately swarmed by pedicab drivers
asking me where I was going and motioning me into their vehicles. I shook them off, saying I didn’t have any
money—they give up rather quickly when you tell them that—and sprinted into the
terminal. It was 7:20. Three minutes later, I was winded and sweaty,
but I laid eyes on the most welcome sight of the day: my crummy, shoddy, Puspa
Indah bus sitting in the terminal. The
driver and conductor saw me hauling ass into the terminal. Fittingly and unnecessarily, they called out
“Terakhir! Terakhir! Malang terakhir!” Last
one! Last one! Last one to Malang!
Yes, I know, thanks.
I got into the bus, panting and sweating, relieved beyond
measure. Ten minutes later, we pulled
out of the terminal. An hour after that,
I was home. I could not have been more delighted
to see nasi pecel waiting on the
table. Two massive plates and a shower
later, I was in bed.
**
The whole journey felt like a protracted test of endurance
and stamina and patience. And I’m
convinced I would not have been emotionally or mentally equipped for such a
trip without the year spent in Indonesia before it. Learning the patience to sit spend an entire
day on buses without getting cross; not minding deprivation of food and
comfort—even looking forward to it because of trust in the sweetness of having
those things restored; acquiring the calm and flexibility to shrug off the
things I cannot control and to focus on what is within my power. It’s not that the experience was without
stress. But this newfound endurance preserved
my capacity to appreciate of the beauty of these exhausting, extreme, sublime
three days.
